This invention provides an improvement in a printer in which a long photographic paper wound in a roll form is supplied for printing, then cut to a size corresponding to a frame of a film after printing for additional processing and fed as a sheet-form photographic paper, and more particularly, this invention provides a printer, a feeding device for feeding sheet-form photographic paper to be forwarded from the printer, and an automatic developing device arranged in this order to form a photographic processing machine which performs a series of processing operations, including printing and developing the photographic paper, in which the printer includes an improved photographic paper accumulator stores the photographic paper printed in said printer and operates to adjust for the difference between the time required for the printing operation in the printer and the time required for the development operation in the automatic developing device.
A conventional automatic photographic processing machine which has been widely used includes a printer provided with a photographic paper accumulator in which a long photographic paper wound in a roll form and mounted in a photographic paper pay-out member arranged at one side in a housing mounted on a machine frame is paid out intermittently for a desired length, and then after printing thereof, is cut to a size corresponding to a frame of a film, in response to the time required for performing an after-treatment, such as a developing treatment, and feeds the cut separate sheet-form photographic paper one by one; a feeding device for receiving the individual sheet-form photographic paper forwarded from this printer and feeding the paper one-by-one to an automatic developing device; and an automatic developing device for applying a developing treatment on the sheet-form photographic paper fed by the feeding device. A photographic paper accumulator used with such automatic photographic processing machine have been constructed as having a casing fixed to the housing of the printer and provided with an opening at the top thereof for receiving and supplying the photographic paper; a group of upper photographic paper guide rollers formed such that the rollers for guiding the photographic paper are rotatably mounted at a plurality of stationary shafts positioned at the upper part of the casing, the axes of the guide rollers being at right angles with respect to the transfer direction of the photographic paper and which are arranged in a row spaced apart in the transferring direction; a group of lower photographic paper guide rollers formed such that they are positioned below the group of upper photographic paper guide rollers in the casing, with some of the rotatable lower guide rollers arranged in a supporting member which may be moved up and down along guide rails, in a staggered fashion with respect to each of the rollers forming the group of upper photographic paper guide rollers; an upper limit switch for use in sensing when the group of lower photographic paper guide rollers have reached the lowermost position to terminate the intermittent pay-out operation of the photographic paper from the photographic paper pay-out member, or a printing operation for the photographic paper, etc.; and a lower limit switch for sensing when the group of lower photographic paper guide rollers have reached an upper position limit to terminate an intermittent pull-out operation of the photographic paper from the photographic paper accumulator, or a cutting operation for cutting the photographic paper to a size corresponding to a frame of a film, etc.
The roll of photographic paper is subjected to strains which tend to curl the paper, due to the fact that it is forcibly curved, pulled out and guided in zig-zag form by each of the upper rollers of the group of the upper photographic paper guide rollers and each of the lower rollers of the group of the lower photographic paper guide rollers. In this way, when the strained photographic paper is cut to a size corresponding to a frame of a film, it will become curled, resulting in some zig-zag movement which will present obstruction problems in conveying the photographic paper through the automatic developing device. The curled photographic paper will also make the developing treatment difficult resulting in poor development.
When a roll of photographic paper is newly installed, it will present unavoidable problems such as troublesome installation of the photographic paper over both upper and lower groups of guide rollers, and the length of the photographic paper required for its installation is long resulting in some loss in the photographic paper.